Declaration of Health Independence and Security

Healthcare advocates from fourteen states met in Wayne, Penn., April 10, 2010. The following Declaration is a result of the meeting. Add your name to the Declaration at Healthcare-Now!'s website.

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for the people of this nation and its separate but equal states to transform conditions related to the common good within our control and necessary in order to assure the basic human rights of all, recognition of our common humanity and a decent respect to the opinions of humankind compel us to declare those conditions for which we demand such a transformation.

Healthcare is a basic human right. To this end, we the undersigned representatives of these assembled states, declare our dedication to the transformation of the profit-driven healthcare system into one of our shared humanity under a social insurance model–a publicly funded, privately and publicly delivered system, equally available to all. Current expenditures on healthcare can and must fund this systemic transformation.

Working in our individual and several states, we will educate our fellow residents, petition our legislators for our collective redress of grievances under the current system, and pursue passage of patient-driven healthcare policy legislation.

We hold these truths still to be self-evident, that all people are created equal and have certain inalienable rights. Among these rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and that in order to enjoy these rights, access to healthcare without regard to financial or any other barriers must be secured.

Signed this 10th day of April, 2010, at Central Baptist Church in Wayne, Pennsylvania.

States represented: West Virginia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Delaware, Ohio, California, New York, Colorado, Wisconsin, and Minnesota